Quotas may bring 54% more seats: Panel

Oversight Committee has projected an additional student intake of 80,557 to enforce quotas in educational institutes.

The Oversight Committee, set up to prepare a roadmap for reservations for OBCs in elite educational institutions, has projected an additional student intake of 80,557 with a 54 per cent capacity expansion of seats to implement the new quota.

However, this will involve an overall expenditure of Rs 16,563.34 crore — Rs 9,092.96 crore as non-recurring and Rs 7,470.38 crore as recurring expenses — over five years.

Of the total additional intake of students under the 27 per cent quota, 17 Central universities will accommodate a major chunk of 63,005 students, followed by engineering colleges offering seats to 16,132 students, said statistics contained in the Committee's interim report.

A total of 1,42,757 students are currently enrolled in the agriculture, management, medical and engineering fields in the Central universities that were studied by the Veerappa Moily-led Committee.

The Committee, in its report presented to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recently, pointed out that a 12,126-strong faculty would be required for the 54 per cent expansion of seats.

However, the sub-group on engineering felt not all institutions would be able to implement the 27 per cent quota in one go. It recommended that an enabling provision may be put in place for institutions hampered by special constraints or limitations to enable them to implement the quota in a phased manner over a period of not more than three years.

Management institutes wanted the reservations implemented over a period of time.